Thursday, September 23, 2010

Jugni

This posts is more like an extension of the previous post, exploring the genre of music. It can have many names for the style of music - folk, fusion and so on, but in essence it belongs to the Jugni style of narrative. Jugni literally means a female firefly, the male being the more commonly known Jugnu. These songs generally cover the journey of a Jugni who visits different places and makes different observations, some of these are political, some funny, some satrical, sometimes even with sexual connotations.

The style developed in the region of Punjab, now partly in India and partly in Pakistan. The style continued its popularity in Pakistan with artists like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Arif Lohar and his father Alam Lohar, often using the Jugni methaphor in their songs. The credit for the revival of the Jugni songs in the mainstream popular music scene in India goes to Rabbi, who sang a very hard-hitting Jugni song in his very first album.

The form is very expressive, but the often used Khadi Punjabi makes it sometimes difficult to understand. The form remains popular still, amongst the Punjabis as well as the non-Punjabis, Hindus as well as the Muslims.